The Crystal Symphony cruise ship remains docked in Bimini, Bahamas after a U.S. court issued a warrant for its seizure.
On Wednesday Peninsula Petroleum Far East filed a lawsuit against Crystal Cruises, saying the company owes more than $4.6 million in unpaid fuel bills. The following day, a U.S. judge issued an arrest warrant for the Crystal Symphony, which owes $1.2 million of the unpaid debt.
The cruise ship was scheduled to return to Miami on Saturday after its two-week voyage. It rerouted and sailed to the Bahamas to avoid being seized by U.S. marshals.
As a result, around 300 passengers were stuck on the ship an extra day. Crystal Cruises transported the passengers from Bimini to Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale Florida via ferry. The cruise line acknowledged that the ferry ride ended up being “uncomfortable due to inclement weather,” and the company also issued a statement about how this wasn’t what they had wanted for the guests aboard the ship.
“This end to the cruise was not the conclusion to our guests’ vacation we originally planned for,” said Susan Robison, a spokeswoman for Crystal Cruises.
Crystal Cruises’ parent company is Genting Hong Kong, which filed for bankruptcy last Tuesday after saying it expects to run out of money by the end of the month. Crystal Cruises had announced that it was going to be suspending operations of three of its ships, including the Symphony, until April 2022 as a result of the filing. The future of the cruise line, and the crews on its ships, remains uncertain.
